What a difference a week makes.
Leaving Austin seven days ago, the decisions from the stewards – and more pointedly the driving standards guidelines they have to apply – were a major talking point.
Even allowing for the traditional biases that teams and their personnel might have, there was a pretty universal acceptance across the grid that the racing rules needed to be addressed.
In line with what I wrote about last week, the general consensus was that Max Verstappen had done nothing wrong in his approach to fighting Lando Norris at Circuit of the Americas, based on the way the guidelines are currently written.
In order to stop someone from overtaking them around the outside, should a driver be allowed to carry too much speed into a corner in order to ensure they are first to the apex, and then run completely off track as a result? No. But do the current guidelines allow that to be used a defensive technique? Yes.
So Verstappen expertly exploited those regulations in the United States, and Norris felt aggrieved at being so close to completing an overtake at Turn 12 but having to go off track to do so, earning himself a penalty.
The grievance can be directed at the fact that the rules need to be revisited, but not at the fact that they were incorrectly applied.
Throughout the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend, that remained a major talking point. The drivers discussed it amongst themselves after the driver briefing on Friday, and in speaking to many of them it was clear that they felt the guidelines need to evolve to prevent such a defensive move being considered acceptable.
The current guidelines make it too easy for a driver on the inside to defend their position, even if that has always been the high ground in racing and should remain so. But come Sunday night, there was an almost comical stance offered by Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.
Unlike COTA, where Horner said it was clear Norris deserved a penalty, he felt the stewards had got a similar call in Mexico City wrong. And while I totally understand a team boss defending his driver almost to a fault, his reasoning was completely at odds with almost every opinion that had been voiced up to that point.
Horner brought GPS data of two laps from Norris – one being his fastest lap of the race, the other being the lap when he tried to overtake Verstappen – to his post-race press conference and used it to show that Norris was later on the brakes and 15kph quicker on the lap when he was attacking Verstappen than on his fastest race lap.
“He wouldn’t have made the corner,” Horner claimed. “He would have run off track. You can see from his onboard steering. And of course at this point of the race he’s got probably 80 kilos more fuel than at the point that he’s done his fastest lap.
“It used to be a reward of the bravest to go around the outside. I think we’re in danger of flipping the overtaking laws upside down, where drivers will just try to get their nose ahead at the apex and then claim that they have to be given room on the exit. And you can see quite clearly he’s effectively come off the brakes, gone in super, super late to try and win that argument as far as the way these regulations are written, and then at that point you’re penalized.
“Now every karting circuit, every indoor karting circuit around the world, if you’ve got the inside line you control the corner. It’s one of the principles and the physics of racing. So they just need to get back to basics that if you’re on the outside, you don’t have priority. Otherwise we will end up with a mess over these last five races.
“So I think it’s really important that the driver steward, together with the drivers, agree something that is sensible rather than what we’re getting, because again there is an inconsistency of, should Checo [Perez] have been penalized versus the same incident with Liam [Lawson], for example? So that’s one of the fundamentals that needs to be addressed here.”
Horner appears to ignore the fact that Norris would be taking the corner in a completely different manner when overtaking. In any racing battle, your focus becomes the car you’re fighting, not the perfect line through the corner as on your best solo lap, and he can afford to compromise his exit as long as it helps him complete the move.
The onboard footage also appears to show Norris would have kept his car legally on track but for Verstappen’s positioning on the exit, where the Red Bull driver opened his steering after the apex. So the data is irrelevant if it’s not accurately showing what actually unfolds.
But that’s not to say Verstappen was intentionally not leaving space on the exit. It’s impossible to claim to know exactly a driver’s thinking or intent in such moments. However it is clear that Norris was fully alongside throughout the corner, and had to take evasive action that forced him to leave the track.
For once in battles between the two, Verstappen didn’t get it quite right. At COTA he did based on the way the rules are written, and he could not be criticized for racing to the rules provided. On that day, you could criticize Norris for not finding a way past a slower car. But on this occasion Norris had done the better job.
It was commendable, because the rules so heavily favor the inside car. And yet Horner tried to claim the opposite was happening, simply because Verstappen had lost out for once.
“The racing principles for years have been if you have the inside line, you dictate the corner,” he said. “I think the way the regulations or the guidelines have evolved are encouraging a driver to have his nose ahead at apex irrelevant of whether you’re gong to make the corner.
“You can quite clearly see on the overlay of those two laps, that Lando has hung out there to get that advantage. So it’s something that just needs to be tidied up so that everybody knows what is acceptable.”
Where I’ll agree with Horner is in believing that the penalty for Verstappen for the Turn 4 incident was harsh, because Norris rejoined ahead and stayed ahead. He did not lose the advantage he had rightly earned, and it should have been play on from there. Turn 8 was then penalty-worthy, which Horner agreed with.
But when the irony of his comments about just getting to the apex with no intention of making the corner – exactly what Verstappen has been so often accused of – were put to Horner, he insisted it was not the same situation.
“It’s slightly different, because obviously both of them went off the track last week, and you can’t gain an advantage by passing off-track,” he said. “This is different, because Max hasn’t actually gone off the track. He’s stayed within the perimeter.
“It’s something that really does need to get tidied up moving forward. There’s great racing going on, and it’s just important that the rules of engagement are fair, rather than giving an advantage to the outside line, which in the history of motorsport, being on the outside has always been the more risky place to be.
“Now, it’s almost the advantage because all you’ve got to do is have your nose ahead at the point they turn in, irrelevant if you’re going to make the corner or not.”
And he’s right, it’s not the same situation. Verstappen did make the corner, but he was obliged to leave space for a car on the outside that had gotten fully alongside (as opposed to only partially, which is the advantage for those attacking on the inside line).
Being on the outside will never be the advantage. The laws of physics – referenced by Horner himself on Sunday – mean a car can’t carry too much speed in and cry foul on the outside if the inside car leaves space, because they simply won’t make the corner.
If they’re left space, don’t stay on track and emerge ahead, it’s the most simple penalty ever that has never been debated. If they brake late enough to be alongside all the way through the corner, and do remain within track limits, then they’ve done exactly what racing is all about and driven better then their opponent.
To run out of road when on the inside, though, as Verstappen has so often, requires a reaction from the car on the outside. And that’s why there’s been debate about the racing rules.
How you attack from the outside has so far never been questioned, and the only voice doing it was the Red Bull team boss on Sunday.
If nothing else, it shows just how much pressure Horner and Red Bull are feeling – even with a 47-point advantage.